Bottles vs Cans: Post 1 of 3

If you are reading this blog, you have likely sampled a New Planet Beer from a brown bottle. And you may have observed some of your glutenoid friends drinking from cans and wondered when you can enjoy the same? While New Planet Beer is committed to bottles for the near future, we are open to putting our beers in cans.

Walking through the liquor store it is quickly apparent that there is a new trend in the beer industry, cans. No longer are they traditional cans, constrained by the combination of silver, blue, white and red. Today’s can is a canvas, a piece of art, that makes the experience of drinking beer that much more special. But there must be more to it, after all, bottles have been used for centuries.

Below are four reasons that bottles are preferred over cans. We’ll discuss the benefits of cans in a later post.

History – The story goes that a monk stored his beer in a wine bottle and it kept well. Beer has been in brown bottles ever since and eventually evolved to different bottle shapes to accentuate certain qualities of their beer.

Skunked – If light strikes beer it can change its taste and smell. Ultra-violet light chemically changes iso-humulones (isomerized hop oils, which are responsible for the bitterness hops add to beer) into mercaptans, the exact same ingredient in a skunk’s spray!

Taste – Many people feel beer tastes better from the bottle. Aluminum can leave an aftertaste in beer (however, cans now have added a liner to prevent fluctuations in taste, made from BPA, which has its own downsides.)

Temperature control – Glass does a better job keeping the beer cold. Aluminum convects quicker than glass, warming the beer, however, cozies solve this problem.

What are your thoughts? Do you prefer bottles or cans? Leave a comment below and tell us why.

Comments

Non-celiac beer drinkers have the choice in-store for bottle or cans, so why are we only limited to bottles? I would love for gluten free beer drinkers to have the option in-store. Now we are limited to bottles only. When summers have you out and about, enjoying the outdoors, bottles restrict you to where you can bring them. Please please please give us the option for cans.

We were in Estes Park in Septemeber, 2010 and got the chance to enjoy New Planet, and we want more but were are from Seattle (Kent) WA. There is definitely a demand for gluten free beer, love to see it in Washington. PS – my wife who is not gluten sensitive liked it as well.